


A Tender Heart Among The Green

by dogtit



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Gen, au where the sirens raise lucy (and also the animals are there.), i just wanted to write some Snoft bitches aight dont judge me, referenced catwoman/batman because duh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 02:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20575268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogtit/pseuds/dogtit
Summary: Selina and Harley walk in on something they weren't exactly expecting.Self indulgent oneshot from a self indulgent au where the Sirens raise Lucy.





	A Tender Heart Among The Green

“Is it really okay to leave Ivy alone with them all?” Selina asked, drumming her thumbs on the steering wheel. 

“They got their shots,” Harley said, using the rearview mirror to adjust her lipstick. “Ain’t nothin’ to worry about, Kitty.”

“You’re really gonna just say that? In my _ Benz _ ? While my baby is with _ Poison Ivy? _” 

To tastefully smear it for that niche ‘cute little psycho fresh out of bed’ look, or keep the edges sharp enough to stab a man while stabbing a man? She went with the latter option, because as much as she (and Red, though she’d _ die _ before admitting it to Harely’s face) loved mess with a purpose, if Harley was gonna end up on the late night news, she wanted to look her best. 

“What if it’s only temporary?” Selina continued to speculate. Her hands strangled the wheel, leather gloves creaking at her knuckles. “Like mine is? You _ know _ she hates organic life that isn’t swimming in chlorophyll or clown makeup.”

Harley readjusted the mirror and kicked her seat back, propping her heelies up on the console. Making sure her Nokia was squeezed between her thighs, Harley dug into her bag of tricks and pulled out her Nintendo Switch.

“That clownfucker,” Selina gripped, her worry cha-cha-sliding into anger, “she wouldn’t _ dare _ . She knows better. No, I bet she’s doing something to Isis’ fur. If I see a _ hint _ of vine on my baby, I’m going to scalp her, Harley, mark my damn words.”

“Snatch her to the roots?” Harley commented, biting her tongue between her teeth, thumbs moving across sticks to encourage Link to sprint naked toward the castle. 

“You’re damn right.” Selina huffed. Quietly, she added, “She really wouldn’t hurt Isis, would she?”

Harley paused to let Link recover his stamina, and then pushed forward with a drawn out hum. Selina’s shoulders raised with tension, her dark skin flushing with her mounting frustration. After Harley had managed to squeeze into Hyrule Castle’s dungeons, she looked at Selina proper. 

“Nawww,” she said, and Selina let out a low exhale through her nose. Harley continued, “Well, she might, if Icey knocks over a plant.” 

“Fuck! Why would you tell me that?!” Selina gnawed her bottom lip. “She would absolutely knock over a plant if Ivy isn’t paying attention to her!”

“I’m sure it’s fine!” 

“I’m turning around. We’re going home.” 

“Kitty, _ c’mon. _ I left my _ kid _ with her. Think that says a lot ‘bout how I trust my Red.” 

“Lucy is an angel heaven sent to a pack of ne’er do wells who don’t deserve her,” Selina argued. “Isis is a dick.”

“And Ivy loves you,” Harley said, narrowing her eyes when Selina scoffed at the notion. “Hey, she _ does _.” 

“She loves _ you _ ,” Selina said, flicking on the turn signal and merging into a u-turn only lane. “She _ tolerates _ me because _ you _love me.” 

“Selina,” Harley said, putting on her Big Girl voice. She put away her Switch, took her feet from the console, and reached out to put a hand over Selina’s. “Listen t’me, ‘kay? Trust me. Ivy loves ya. She’s just a little traumatized seven ways to Sunday and human feelings are real hard for her, sometimes. But she tries. She never stops tryin’. For you, for me, for Lucy, an’ even for the other babies. Wouldn’t’a given y’all the shots otherwise.” 

Selina ground her jaw. Her left foot jogged by the brake, as she slowed the car to a stop. Thankfully for everyone involved, traffic in the dead night of Gotham was nonexistent; anyone who couldn’t afford armed guards around their equally armored vehicles didn’t exactly take to the streets. It let them sit at the junction of the turn without annoyed honks or road rage. Gave Selina the time to think over Harley’s words.

“And maybe she doesn’t...trust ya with the things she trusts me with,” Harley allowed. “Gonna be real wit’cha there, it’s ‘cause of your thing with Bats. She knows you’d pick him over us, worst comes to worst.”

Selina flinched at that. She put her forehead against the wheel and seemed to sag with guilt at the news. 

“But she loves ya,” Harley soothed. “Cross my heart. She loves ya.”

“...Okay,” Selina said at last. She merged out from the turn lane and back onto the street proper, sending the Mercedes forward with a blast of acceleration. 

\--

“Kitty’s got a boooooyfriiiiiiend,” Harley taunted, fishing in her microshorts for the house keys. Figured that she couldn’t get the bastards when she needed them, but they wouldn’t stop pokin’ her in the ass the entire kerfuffle! 

“God, shut up,” Selina heaved. She smelled like smoke and had a shiner over her eye the size of Texas; there was a reason Bats had kicked Bane’s ass to Timbuktu after that. Harley had joined in with her bat the minute Kitty’d gone down and not sprung back up, her heart lodged in her throat and pounding so hard Harley could taste it. Still, no lasting damage, and by the dopey expression on Selina’s face the big smooch from B-Man had been a nice curative. 

Honestly, if Selina stayed overnight and _ didn’t _ go to her man, Harley would have to revoke her sexy anti-hero license. Even Ivy would’a been hardpressed to blame Selina for a raunchy ‘we survived, yay!’ sex night. 

“Got’em!” Harley cheered as she grabbed the keys and turned the lock. Nudging open the door with her toes, she called, “Babies, we home!” 

The lobby of the abandoned laundromat was covered ceiling to floor in green. Through peeled back linoleum, lush grass sprouted upwards; crossing over the windows like a homegrown barricade were thick vines covered in moss. Willow leaves dangled from the ceiling in a welcoming curtain, and they plucked at Harley’s hair and took her bags and coat to ferry away to the little apartment the Sirens had claimed as home. 

“Thanks, snookuns,” Harley purred to them.

She trailed her fingers and gathered handfuls of the thin vines to pull to her lips, gracing the plantlife with a grateful smack of her lips. The ceiling groaned as the tree they were attached to shuddered; the moss by the windows erupted with blooms of wildflowers, an impossibility brought on with only a little bit of lovin’ and Ivy’s unnatural growing habits. Harley had no connection with the Greenthingie, but the plants Ivy grew herself tended to respond to Harley’s vocal commands--so long as they didn’t contradict Ivy’s. 

“Please do _ not _ fuck the tree tonight, Harley,” Selina groaned. The leaves were carting away her cap, goggles, and whip. 

“I don’t kinkshame you in the house,” Harley snipped back. Patches of violets were blooming against her calves, swaying in a soundless grab for attention; Harley reached down to brush her palms against the petals, and the flowers shrunk to a more manageable height.

Selina scoffed. “It’s not kinkshaming, it’s roomie-shaming. You and Ivy aren’t exactly that quiet even inside a tree, and if I have to spend tonight explaining to Lucy why Mama and Aunt Pam are fighting again...”

A tentative willow vine lingered by Selina’s swollen eye, rubbing against her shoulder in what Harley recognized as some form of distress. Selina gently shoo’ed it away with a finger. “Hey, hey, don’t _ you _ get any ideas either. Kitty’s stressed and ready to decompress.” But Selina was smiling when it curved around her finger and petulantly whapped the tip of her nose before releasing. 

Leaving their shoes at the foot of the stairs, a rolling wave of grass ushering them into little cubbies carved out by the roots of Ivy’s special willow tree, Harley and Selina mosied on up the stairs. The apartment was bigger than expected, for Gotham’s slummy downtown, with three bedrooms and two and a half baths. In a perfect world, with just the Sirens and Lucy, they would have had all the room they needed. 

But, of course, Lucy wasn’t the only baby that needed looking after. Bud and Lou and Isis and the menagerie of Ivy’s floral cousins needed a home, too. Bud and Lou usually slept in Lucy’s room--they were older and wiser and well trained to keep Lucy safe if the guard plants didn’t do enough of a job--and Isis was perpetually camped in Selina’s room snoozin’ during the day, wandering the cat shelves Selina had installed around the apartment in the night. It was a cramped life, and when Lucy got bigger and older, they’d have to move--but it was also pretty cozy. 

Harley sure hoped Ivy hadn’t blown a gasket yet. Lucy was well behaved, but she was also hitting her Terrible Twos stage. Harley knew that Ivy would die before ever putting a hand to Lucy, but she could raise hell with her voice, and sometimes Red could say things she’d regret. Heat of the moment. And they _ had _ sort of sprung babysitting on Red last minute…

Selina opened the apartment door. The first thing that hit Harley’s nose was the smell of homemade Mac N’ Cheese and chocolate chip cookies. Her mouth watered instantly and her tummy growled. 

“Oh,” Selina said, standing in the doorway, her voice choked with tears and rasped into silence with shock, “my _ God. _” 

“What? What?!” Harley shoved under Selina’s arm, then fell silent herself. 

Because sprawled out on the saggy couch from the start of their three girl group team up, head thrown back and mouth open, snoring her precious green heart away, was Ivy. Drool ran in a waterfall from the corner of her mouth, and these weren’t any sort of ladylike snores, either; they were big, exhausted, _ Mama’s Had A Day _ snores, that would’ve rattled the windows.

That alone would have been legend. But Ivy also had a baby girl splayed across her chest; Lucy Quinzel was tucked beneath a blanket of green moss, fuzzy leaves, and flower blossoms that opened and closed in time with Ivy’s snores, her thumb in her mouth and a little fist curled up in Ivy’s sleeping shirt.

Curled over Ivy’s shoulders, half hidden by her wild hair, was Isis. The fluffy Siamese looked like a neck pillow, her tail swaying back and forth in contentment. Bud had his head on one of Ivy’s legs, and it looked like Ivy’d fallen asleep mid scratches because his stubby tail was still thumping on the cushions. Lou was comfortably propping up Ivy’s legs, tongue lolled. 

_ Steven Universe _ was playing on the television. It was the wedding episode; _ But for just one day, let’s only think about love! _ Steven pleaded in his suit. 

“This is a sign,” Harley choked out. She wanted to fucking _ bawl _. “Right? This is a sign. I’m gonna wife her.” 

Ivy snored louder at that. It was particularly gross. 

“I need photos,” Selina said, grabbing the zipper of her catsuit and jerking it down. She fished out her smartphone from between her breasts and quickly entered her pin. “I need actual proof that Poison Ivy was goddamn mess!” 

“_ Look how cute she is _ ,” Harley whisper shouted. She was tempted to fall to her knees and followed the impulse, laid low by the power of her girlfriend cradling Harley’s baby with the utmost tenderness. And also the absolute _ fucking _hilarity of walking in on Poison Ivy, renowned for her disgust of all things related to humanity, indulging in a cuddle puddle. “OhmyGod Kitty this is it, this is how I die, tell my wife I love her. Get a close up on that snot bubble.” 

Ivy stirred. They could both sense it because the plantlife got a little less touchy, and a little more alert. Selina ended her photo and video session and stuffed her phone back in her boobs; Harley scrambled to her feet. Together they hustled out of the living room and halfway down the stairs, like two teenagers almost caught sneaking back in. 

“Okay,” Harley whispered. She checked to see if she was crying; score one for team Quinn, she had her eyes dry. Makeup was a little smudged though, but Harley could always blame sweat. “Okay, so we _ cannot _ let her know that we saw that.”

“It’s our secret,” Selina agreed hurriedly. “Something to coo about tomorrow when she’s at work.”

Harley nodded, spat in her palm, and held it out. Selina did the same and they clapped hands, sealing their unbreakable vow. Making as much noise as possible, Harley and Selina trudged back up the stairs, to give Ivy enough time to make herself as distant looking as she wanted. 

“Honeycomb, I’m home,” Harley announced, swinging the door open. To her surprise, outside of wiping away the drool from her mouth and fixing her hair so it was less messy, Ivy hadn’t moved from her position. Lucy, Isis, and the boys were still in their positions. “A-aww….awww, Kitty, lookit! Ivy got all cozy tonight!” 

“Yeah, she--” Selina coughed. “So fucking cozy.”

“I see you girls had a night,” Ivy observed, a brow arched imperiously. She held herself like a queen or some form of pagan goddess from one of Harley’s overpriced textbooks, chin tilted just so. Had Harley not seen Ivy practically drowning in her own slobber five minutes ago, it would have given her the Good-Good Tingles.

“Bane,” was all Selina said with a shrug. “We went to bail out Bats, but turns out we weren’t really needed. We did shut down his Venom operations though.”

“Turns out he was tryin’ ta’ move in on ya turf, Red,” Harley added. “Somethin’ about using plants that synthesized some more potent formula or somethin’; we busted that buddin’ beauty outta there. It’s in my bag, willow scooped it up.” 

Ivy’s eyes flared a brighter green, the pupils of her eyes blowing out. Communing with her plants. A blink later, and the prettiest smile curled Ivy’s lips later. “Thank you. I’m bringing your bag up to the roof to get the little darling into some soil right now.” 

“Smells good in here,” Selina said idly. 

“Leftovers. Hamburger steak, some green beans, mac and cheese. Yours is in the oven, Harley’s is in the microwave.” 

Selina almost stumbled to a stop as she crossed for the kitchenette. “Y-you cooked? You left some for _ me? _” 

Ivy scowled. “Of course I did. Lucy-Goosey was hungry and I knew you two would probably be hungry too. There’s not much; Lou, that little _ glutton _, ate most of the hamburger patties. I salvaged what I could. The cookies are still cooling, so be careful if you indulge.” 

Selina blinked. Reached up to her scalp. “I uh--thanks, Ives.” 

“Eat, I’m going to get Lucy into bed. I’ll take a look at that eye, too.” Those brilliant green eyes turned over to Harley. “Are you hurt, Daffodil?” 

“Naw, I was good. Not a scratch on me.” 

Harley gave Ivy a grin as she strolled over to the couch. Bud woke up with a grumble and begrudgingly went to join Lou on the floor as Harley claimed his spot by Ivy’s side, snuggling up against her. She nearly got a face full of fluffy cat tail for the trouble, Isis half heartedly protecting her space across Ivy’s shoulders before the cat slithered onto a couch arm, stretched, and padded off to the kitchenette with Selina. 

“How was she?” Harley asked softly. She reached over and stroked one of Lucy’s pigtails, styled like her Mama’s. “Good?”

“She pulled on my hair because she ‘got bored’,” Ivy recollected coolly. “So we had a discussion about why it’s not nice to hurt people for your own amusement.” 

“Yeah?” Harley’s voice went tight. 

“I cried,” Ivy said solemnly, with a wink. “Poor Lucy didn’t know that it made people cry. She apologized and promised not to do it again.” 

A tightness in Harley’s chest unwound. The fear that Ivy would compare Lucy to her father had always lingered in the back of Harley’s mind. Harley may have given the kid her stunning good looks and her pretty eyes, but unfortunately that red hair was all Joker. She shouldn’t have worried, Harley realized, because Ivy was so much sweeter than anyone gave her credit for.

“She’s also two,” Ivy continued with a chuckle. “She has so much more to learn. It’s just her experimenting with the world. A natural scientist.”

“She’s gonna get that from you,” Harley joked. 

The look on Ivy’s face was soft, and beautiful, and human. It was hopeful and tender and Ivy stroked over Lucy’s head, the flowers of her foliage blanket bursting with new color and life. In a reverent voice, Ivy looked Harley in the eyes and whispered, “I hope she does.” 

_ Gotta lock that down _ , was all Harley could think as she leaned in, giving Ivy a well deserved kiss. _ Ain’t lettin’ nobody else make a move. Puttin’ a ring on this, a-sap. _

“Hey, hey, hey,” Selina mock scolded as she walked back into the living room, tucking into her meal while standing. “Not on the couch! We have to sit there. Also your _ kid _ is there, you animals, c’mon.”

“Oh, hush, pussycat,” Ivy fired out. She rose up, half assisted by her plants so that she wouldn’t have to step around the hyenas while holding onto Lucy. “When you inevitably end up curling up with the bat for good, you’ll have a little nest full of birds to tend to yourself. No more sauntering around in heat for _ you _.” 

“Fuck off, Ivy,” Selina said warmly. 

Ivy held Lucy in one arm and flipped Selina off with the other, smiling just as widely. She sauntered out of the living room and down the hall to put Lucy to bed without another word, but they could hear her laughing softly beneath her breath anyway. It gave Harley the time to grab her own grub from the kitchen, warming it up for a minute before camping down at the coffee table and shoveling as much meat and pasta into her mouth as she could. Selina had claimed a spot on the couch and ate at a much neater pace. They watched the cartoon for a minute or two more in silence. 

“Man, Blue Diamond is a snack,” Selina observed. 

“Pearl can get it,” Harley agreed around a mouthful of food. After swallowing, she wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. “Also; I fuckin’ _ told _ you Pam loved ya.”

“I’ll love her more,” Ivy said, coming up from behind them, dropping a little cloth bag into Selina’s lap, “when Selina deletes the footage she took of me.”

Selina went pale. She stopped midchew. 

“I plead the fifth,” Harley said, holding up her arms. 

“Phone, please.”

“They’re in my tits, Isley.” 

“Oh no, breasts,” Ivy drawled. “Truly, how will I, a lesbian with eyes, be able to overcome this obstacle? You’ve defeated me. Phone. _ Now _.“

Selina dropped her utensils with a growl, fishing out her phone once again and sourly slapping it in Ivy’s outstretched palm. 

“And Harley,” Ivy purred. “You should know, I’ll _ happily _ say yes.” 

Harley choked on her mac. 

“But as a rite of marital passage,” Ivy continued with false sweetness, “you’re going to be getting cozy with the couch tonight. For the snot bubble.” She blew them both a kiss. “Make sure to put away the cookies. Goodnight.” 

Selina opened the bag as Ivy left once again. It was one of Ivy’s most potent medicinal creams, made special just for the bad kinda bruising Harley used to show up with on a weekly basis. Selina and Harley looked at each other, and as the show vignetted on Steven Universe, they shared a sigh of contented misery.


End file.
